Category: papers (pdf)

Papers by Richard Heath

pdf: Counting lunar eclipses using the Phaistos Disk

This paper* concerns itself with a unique fired-clay disk, found by Luigi Pernier in 1908 within the Minoan “palace” of Phaistos (aka Faistos), on the Greek island of Crete. Called the Phaistos Disk, its purpose or meaning has been interpreted many times, largely seen as either (a) a double-sided text in the repeated form of a spiral and outer circle written using an unknown pictographic language stamped in the clay or (b) as an astronomical device, record or handy reference. We provide a calendric interpretation based on the simplest lunar calendars known to apply in Minoan times, finding the Disk to be (a) an elegant solution to predicting repeated eclipses within the Saros period and (b) an observation that the Metonic is just one lunar year longer, and true to the context of the Minoan culture of that period.

*First Published on 26 May 2017
web page version

pdf: Musicological Narrative Structures in Biblical Genesis

This paper attempts to interpret the first two books of the Bible, according to Ernest McClain’s methods. It is contended that the compositions of ancient texts, as Plato insinuated, were both inspired and used for the science of numerical harmonics.

The invariant properties of harmonic numbers, and their evolution through limiting whole numbers, offer a large variety of distinctive scenarios which can be set into compatible narrative forms such as the Seven Days of Creation, the
Garden of Eden, the Flood, the Patriarchal development of the Twelve Tribes and Moses meeting with YHWH.

Cretan Calendar Disks

I have interpreted two objects from Phaistos (Faistos), both in the Heraklion Museum. Both would work well as calendar objects.

One would allow the prediction of eclipses:

The other for tracking eclipse seasons using the 16/15 relationship of the synod of Saturn (Chronos) and the Lunar Year:

paper: Lunar Simulation at Le Manio

Our survey at Le Manio revealed a coherent arc of radial stones, at least five of which were equally long, equally separated and set to a radius of curvature that suggested a common centre. It appears the astronomers at Le Manio understood that, following three lunar sidereal orbits (after 82 days) the moon would appear again at the same point on the ecliptic at the same time of day

paper: The Origins of Day-Inch Counting

ABSTRACT
This paper presents the theory that in the Megalithic period, around 4500-4000 BCE, astronomical time periods were counted as one day to one inch to form primitive metrological lengths that could then be compared, to reveal the fundamental ratios between the solar year, lunar year, and lunar month and hence define a solar-lunar calendar. The means for comparison used was to place lengths as the longer sides of right angled triangles, leading to a unique slope angle. Our March 2010 survey of Le Manio supports this theory.